


Observations

by EmJ93



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: F/M, Pre-Relationship, mentions of childhood abuse (though no more than is stated in canon), spoilers for Aloth's POE1 Personal Quest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 08:26:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17464007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmJ93/pseuds/EmJ93
Summary: Ariela keeps Aloth company as he visits an animancer in an attempt to find out more about his Awakened soul, and ends up coming to a realisation all of her own.





	1. Chapter 1

“And you’re  _quite_  certain that I’m not intruding?” Ariela queried, gently, casting a worried glance in Aloth’s direction. Although she’d readily agreed to do what she could to help her companion with his search for an expert on souls, she couldn’t help but feel a little conflicted now that she was standing alongside him in a dingy animancer’s office in the basement of Brackenbury Sanitarium. She had come to consider Aloth a friend over the past couple of months, growing unexpectedly attached to him despite the rocky start to their relationship, but she couldn’t help but feel that  _this_  was an intensely personal matter. Perhaps it was something that he needed to be doing for himself. “I could always wait outside.”

“No! I… I would prefer that you stay.” His eyes widened in horror at her suggestion, before he shot a somewhat suspicious glance in the direction of the animancer only a few feet away across the room. “Please, Ariela?”

“Of course, darling.” She resisted the urge to reach out with a reassuring touch, having learned many weeks ago that her attempts at physical affection usually only served to make the man even less comfortable. “I can just… hover over here in the corner, and pretend not to hear anything too personal? Have my pistol at the ready in case anything goes horribly wrong?” She chuckled awkwardly as he fixed her with a disapproving look. “That was just a joke.”

One hand found the the hem of his cloak, fingers absent-mindedly fussing with the material. “I think that I’m having second thoughts about this.”

“Aloth. I promise that nothing’s going to go wrong. I’m right here, and I refuse to allow it to.”

“Well,  _that_  certainly sets me at ease.” He remarked, voice dripping with sarcasm as his lips quirked into a forced smile. Averting his gaze from her, he added; “But thank you, Ariela. I appreciate that you came here with me.”

“I promised that I would, didn’t I?” She smiled, reassuringly. She had always been going to help him with this, whatever else might have been going on in her life, or even in the world. She knew what it was like to have been told that you had to hide a part of yourself from the rest of the world, that you were different and that others would fear you for it. It was no way to live, and she would do anything that was in her power to help Aloth to find peace with who he was, just as she had learned to accept her own nature as a cipher. “But if you’re not comfortable with this, then that’s ok. You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to, and I won’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“I appreciate the sentiment. But I think that I may have to do this, however uncomfortable I might feel about it.” Aloth took a deep breath, then nodded pointedly to himself, turning around to face the animancer once more to indicate that he was ready to begin.

Ariela tried to act casual as the animancer led her friend across the room by the shoulders, steering him towards a small couch in the corner. She couldn’t help but feel awkward, like she was intruding somewhere that she did not belong. Aloth had asked her to remain present during the procedure, and so she would, but she didn’t want to appear as though she was just standing in the corner staring at him, and so turned her attention to the animancy equipment that was scattered about the room nearby as the animancer began to fasten copper bands around her friend’s forehead and wrists.

She knew little of the practice of animancy, though she had always assumed that it was undeserving of the reputation that it had in her homeland. The Empire had deemed people like her worthy of being distrusted and shunned as well, after all- ciphers and those with Awakened souls, anyone who didn’t fit the definition of ‘normal’- and she was fairly certain that  _that_  was not warranted. She had always tried her best to be a decent person, and Aloth seemed to be fairly well adjusted as well. People were just people, after all, and she had always thought that the same was probably true for animancy. Just because something was difficult to understand didn’t mean that it should be feared.

“Tell me something personal.” The animancer was instructing, as Ariela turned her attention back to her friend, and found him being examined closely, with an intricate scope fitted with adra lenses. “Something from a time before your Awakening.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” He responded, automatically, and Ariela couldn’t help but smirk at the familiar signs of deflection. She’d spent  _weeks_  figuring out how to break through his walls and get him to open up, she suspected the animancer wasn’t going to succeed at it after only a few minutes. “I was just a normal child living in the Cythwood.”

When his eyes flickered in her direction, Ariela gave him a bright, supportive smile. “I suspect that your 'normal’ was quite different from mine. What do you remember about home?”

An odd feeling overtook her as she spoke, her voice ringing softly like a bell in her chest. Some part of her reached out to Aloth, finding his anxious energy, resonating with his essence, and soothing and smoothing, safely guiding him along the way to his own memories. Was that… a watcher thing? She’d certainly never done anything like that before.

He seemed unaware of her influence, but some of the tension appeared to leave his body, and he closed his eyes. “Comfortable. Modest. Quiet when Mother is away, which is most of the time. Quiet enough to hear the clink of glass on wood. This is when I know to be most careful.”

Ariela frowned, moving slowly across the room as he spoke, inching carefully towards him, her psionics picking up on a deep anxiety that was bubbling just beneath his surface.

“Father is good about hiding the bottles. Mother, when she is home, is good at pretending not to notice them.”

Ariela inched closer still, teeth beginning to worry her lower lip. She was pretty sure she was beginning to understand, now, why he didn’t like to talk about his past.

“This is good.” The animancer informed, and Ariela shot a displeased glance in her direction over her phrasing. “I’m starting to see… something. Continue. Tell us about when you Awakened.”

“I am in my fifth year of training.” Aloth informed, as Ariela drew level with the animancer examining him. His voice was even, his face emotionless, but she could feel that anxiety still, now no longer quite below the surface, growing stronger with each word that he spoke. “Mother is gone. I can let my guard down a little, because when she is around, he is usually only angry with her. But he had heard that I have trouble casting missiles. That my flame shields are unstable. He is furious that I have failed and Mother’s presence reminds him that he has failed, too.”

Ariela bit down on her lip, hard enough to draw blood. The anxiety was rolling off of him now, so violently it amazed her that anyone who was not a cipher would not feel it.

“The first blow takes me by surprise. One moment I am sweeping the kitchen, the next I am sprawled on the ground, stupidly looking at flecks of my blood on tile.”

Ariela steeled her mind against the flashes of images that came upon her as he continued to speak in a trance-like manner. Too personal. _His_  pain, _his_  memories. They should not be hers to see.

“His boots, glistening with fresh polish, thud across the floor. He kicks me in the stomach and I curl up to shield my vitals. But it’s pointless. Protecting one thing only leaves something else exposed. Still huddled on the ground, I retreat as fast as I can. I retreat until the vision of the kitchen and my own trembling knees is nothing but a pinprick against a field of black." 

Aloth’s face contorted in distress, eyes twitching rapidly behind closed lids, jaw tensing and teeth gritting, and before Ariela had a chance to think about it, she was already on the couch beside him, leaning in close, gripping his nearest hand with both of hers. The animancer was saying something, but she didn’t hear, all of her senses completely focused on Aloth.

She brushed a thumb against his skin, moving in soothing circles, keeping her voice steady and soft, her eyes fixed on his face. "It’s ok. You’re ok. You’re safe.” She squeezed his hand, gently. “I’m right here, darling. You’re safe.”

Aloth’s eyes snapped open, a wild look on his face that was quite unlike himself. She held onto his hand even tighter. When he spoke, his voice was unpolished, the familiar twang of hylspeak that Ariela had come to associate with his other personality. “He’s ne'er safe when I hap upon him.”

“That’s it!” The animancer declared, voice rising in excitement. “I’m seeing a shift in essence, something spreading and congealing. Keep talking; he seems to respond to you.”

She met his eye uncertainly. She had built up a rapport with Aloth over the last couple of months, trying to earn his trust, but she’d never had so much as a conversation with his other side. She didn’t know whether _she_  would be as forthcoming. “…Iselmyr?” Aloth’s face cocked a brow, and Ariela swallowed heavily, trying to find the right words. “Do you remember… what caused you to Awaken?”

“Crackin’ bones and voices high in ire. That feeling in yer gut when crisis is nigh.”

“Belfetto! We have flares of a totally distinct essence!” The animancer began to rapidly make notes on some loose sheets of papers off to the side, excitement still lighting up her face. “Can you try to get the two of them talking?”

“I… can try.” Ariela nodded, hesitantly. “Iselmyr? Can you tell Aloth  _why_  you Awakened?”

“Fye, he’s the one needed me! Hidin’ in his own bonebag like a turtle in its shell.” Ariela began to bite back, to assure Iselmyr that Aloth was one of the strongest people she knew for being able to survive what she now knew that he’d been through, but her friend’s reappearance cut her off before she could begin. Face twisting in fury, Aloth’s voice came out sharp and loud. “ _I never turned it over to you._ " 

"Good! Very good!” The animancer enthused, and Ariela raised a brow in her direction.

“I  _do_  hope you’re referring to your findings, because my friend is _actually_  in quite a bit of distress." 

"Ah, yes.” A sheepish look passed over her face for no more than a matter of seconds before the excitement returned, and she fiddled a little more with the scope in her hand. “I can now see two separate patterns of essence. Where he ebbs, the other flows. It’s as if the Awakened soul fills the spaces that he leaves empty.” She prompted Ariela to get back to questioning with a hand gesture, and Ariela resisted the urge to roll her eyes. 

“What exactly are you taking from him, Iselmyr?”

“Nye more than I’m giving. Ye should ask what I did to that auld man o’ his. How last time he laid a hand on us, I brek it in three places.”

_Good_. Ariela kept the thought in her head, knowing that it wasn’t her place to comment. But even despite her usual distaste for violence, she had to admit that the thought of someone hurting Aloth, particularly someone who should have been caring for him, was enough to infuriate her. Because he was her  _friend_ , she rationalised. She was sure she would be just as protective of any of her other friends, as well.

“That wasn’t your decision to make.” Aloth snapped, his head jerking to the side as he fought back control of his own body. “It’s  _never been_ your decision.” His expression contorted once more, and Ariela found herself squeezing his hand tightly again, so that he might know she was still there. That she was there for him no matter what. “Nye was Awakening. But now I’m stuck with ye, and I’ll be damned if I let yer ninnying drag us both through the scupper!”

“Ac, very good!” Lowering her scope, the animancer caught Ariela’s unhappy look in her direction, and added, “Uh, that is, I think I’ve finally got something that we can work with.”

“Oh. Well, that  _is_  good, I suppose.” Ariela conceded, flashing another supportive smile at Aloth as she watched him force Iselmyr back down once more, before his eyes sought out hers, uncertainly.

As the animancer began to share her findings with Aloth, Ariela found her thoughts beginning to wander somewhat. He was amazing, she realised that now. Over the past few weeks, as he’d began to open up to her more, and to speak more candidly to her, she’d come to know him as an intelligent young man, one whose cautious nature had a tendency to overshadow a passionate soul. Knowing now what he had been through to come to this stage; that he had survived pain and hurt and fear, but had still come out of the other side intact, her fondness for him only grew. He had a tendency to be hard on himself, but she knew now. He was so brave, so  _strong_. That was probably why she loved him.

_Oh._  

She… she  _loved_  him? Now that the thought had sprung to mind, it made a lot of sense. She  _had_  been trying to get closer to him for a while now, more so than she did with any of her other newfound companions. She admired him deeply, wanted him to open up to her, to let her be a part of his life. She even kept remarking that he was cute. How had she not realised before now? That she had begun to think of him as more than just a friend?

“That’s utter horseshit.”

Ariela’s attention snapped back to her surroundings with a start at Aloth’s outburst, and she quickly attempted to assess what had happened while she was zoned out. There was an irritated expression on her friend’s face, but she couldn’t quite tell whether it was coming from Aloth or Iselmyr. 

The animancer blinked in surprise, her face beginning to twist into frustration. “Yes,  _never mind_  my years of training. I suppose you have a  _better_  explanation?”

“Um, if I may?” Ariela began, a little hesitantly. She hadn’t exactly listened to what the animancer’s conclusions had been, having been distracted by her own realisations about Aloth. But she  _did_  have an idea of what caused Iselmyr to come to the surface, with a little help from her cipher abilities. Turning her attention entirely on Aloth, she smiled gently. “Iselmyr surfaces when you’re in danger. Or, at least, when she thinks that you are. I think that she senses your anxiety, just like I could with my psionics, and she tries to help. It’s just that her help isn’t always… well,  _helpful_.”

The animancer looked back and forth between the two of them, and then back down at her notes, scribbling a few new additions. “I…. suppose that could be true. I’ll have to check against other research." 

"Well, that’s all well and good for you, but what does this mean for me?” Aloth queried. He made to start to remove the copper bands fastened around his wrists, and Ariela realised that she was still clinging onto his hand as though their lives depended on it. He looked down at their joined hands for a long moment, before dragging his gaze up to her face with a complicated expression.

Ariela quickly released him, hurriedly looking anywhere but his face, hoping that he might not notice the slight blush she felt raising onto her cheeks. She didn’t know why she felt so awkward about it; it wasn’t as though she had never held hands with a friend before. She was very free with her affection, and always had been. But somehow even this small gesture seemed to her as though it would make her newly-realised feelings apparent.

The animancer re-consulted her notes, tapping her quill against them, trying to look very much like she was deep in concentration, but Ariela caught her stealing a glance in her direction over the top of the paper. 

With a small sigh, realising now that they probably could have reached the exact same outcome without the aid of an animancer at all, Ariela elaborated: “I genuinely believe that Iselmyr is just trying to help you. She manifested to protect you from your father, and she seems to surface most commonly when you’re feeling anxious. Perhaps there’s some way for the two of you to find a middle ground?  _Surely_  she’s capable of helping you learn to stand up for yourself without completely disrespecting your personal boundaries?”

“If you had to listen to her half as much as I do, I doubt you would be so confident in that.” Aloth remarked with a frown, but there was a hint of something thoughtful in his expression, as though he were genuinely considering her words. He pulled himself back out of his thoughts with a quick smile in her direction. “I have a lot to process. But thank you all the same, Ariela;  _you_  have been a lot of help.”

“Of course. I’d do anything to help you.” Fighting back any hints of the blush threatening to creep back onto her face, she added; “But, Aloth, can I just say one more thing? Whatever you might decide is the best course of action for dealing with Iselmyr, I do hope that you will stop being so hard on yourself.”

He tilted his head curiously at her words.

“I just… think that you’ve been through a lot. I’d never quite realised how much until now, and I’ve noticed you can sometimes be rather harsh on yourself. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for, Aloth.”

“I, um… thank you?” Despite his clear awkwardness over the compliment, his face turned an adorable shade of pink.

“And, for the record,” Ariela flashed him a smile, preparing herself to head for the exit once she had finished saying her piece. “If you ever need a reminder of your worth; you’ve only to ask, and I’ll gladly oblige.”


	2. Epilogue

“It must be odd,” Ariela remarked one night, as the revelry in the tavern began to die down, and most of her travelling companions had already retired to their beds for some rest. 

There was only the three of them still awake; herself, Aloth & Eder, still seated in the corner booth that their party had been occupying throughout the evening; nursing the last of their drinks, and only dimly registering how late the hour had gotten. Her Aedyran compatriot had been quiet- largely absent, in fact- for the majority of the night; his Hylspeaking other self having taken his place, leaving Ariela to ponder alone on the events that had transpired a few days before, back in Brackenbury Sanitarium. It was probably a good thing, she’d decided, a fair ways into the night, because the copious amount of wine that she’d consumed, mixed with her stewing on her earlier realisation that she had developed feelings for him far beyond those of friendship, would surely have only led to some poor decision were she also to have had had the pleasure of his company. A declaration of love towards a man who was clearly not ready for any kind of romantic attachment? They both deserved better than that, and she was glad that she had not been afforded the opportunity to spoil their friendship.

Still, she had propped her head on her hand, a slow smile spreading across her face as she admired his pretty features from afar, quietly watching Iselmyr’s animated conversation with Eder, until sleepy drunkenness had overtaken her, and she had opened her mouth to speak.

“You say something, Ari?” Eder queried, glancing in her direction with genuine interest.

She barely registered him, however, her eyes still fixed intently on Aloth’s face, addressing Iselmyr as she continued her thought. “Being in a body that isn’t your own. I’ve found that it’s frustrating enough having brief flashes of memory that aren’t mine, I can’t even imagine how it must feel to permanently wake up in another’s body.”

“Aye,” Iselmyr agreed, twisting Aloth’s features into a thoughtful frown. “But it isnae so bad. The worst part is havin to listen to the Lad’s ninnying- there’s nye end to it!”

Ariela chuckled briefly, managing to find the willpower to stop her immediate thoughts from tumbling out of her mouth as she considered that  _she_  certainly wouldn’t complain about being permanently stuck with Aloth’s company. “He does have a tendency to overthink things, but that’s not always a bad thing. And I’m sure it’s just as frustrating for him as it is for you, you know.”

Aloth’s features shifted, a familiar roll of the eyes marking the reappearance of the man himself. “Yes, I’m  _sure_  that it’s my  _caution_ that’s our main problem, and not your need to start a fight with anyone and everyone that you decide you don’t like the look of." 

A frustrated frown spread across his face, as Iselmyr returned. "Well, one of us has tae stand up for ye!”

“Please don’t fight.” Ariela pleaded, her voice coming out much more pathetic that she had intended, and to her surprise the pair fell quiet. “That was… what I’d intended to say in the first place. That you must both have it hard, and that I hope you manage to find a way for the two of you to get along better, so that you don’t have to suffer as much." 

A fond smile spread across Aloth’s face, eyes softening as they looked her over. Ariela couldn’t quite tell which of them had initiated the expression, but it was beautiful, all the same. "Aye,” Their voices blended together, with Aloth’s eventually winning out. “I hope for that, as well.” 


End file.
